Coimbatore musings

Coimbatore musings

October 2022

Coimbatore musings 

The 2022 Coimbatore ISF was a cornucopia of fun, healing, learning, and growing  say Shivi Verma and Rishi Rathod

Life Positive returned to Coimbatore after  a gap of three years to an eagerly waiting  audience. Even though the venue is  the same, each ISF is different from another  because of the circumstances and people.  The last time we were there, we had travelled  to the Isha centre and enjoyed the food and  ambience, meditated inside the Dhyanlingam  cave, and clicked photographs with the mighty  Shiva statue as the backdrop. 

Yet another time, my colleague and I had  travelled to Ooty after the festival and come back  with beautiful memories of lakes, boat rides,  hills, flowerbeds, and shopping for artefacts.  This time, we discovered a local café, to which  Team Life Positive and guest facilitators,  Partha Gupta, Kalyaan Sir, and Father KC  Thomas used to saunter every evening and  have riveting conversation over cuppas of tea,  fritters, and fruit cake slices. Laughter, banter,  jokes, and intense discussions on spiritual  concepts made this sojourn in Coimbatore a  highly unforgettable one. 

However, the real merit of the facilitators was  seen at the workshops. 

Day 1, August 20, 2022 

TOVAA (Teacher of Visualisation and  Affirmation) by Kalyaan Sir 

Kalyaan Sir, the originator of TOVAA, started  the workshop with his infectious energy and  optimistic attitude. He took out a pendulum and  familiarised everyone with its working. Calling  it a divination tool, he told the participants  that when the energy of a space or a person is  positive, the pendulum moves clockwise, and  when it’s negative, anticlockwise. When it  doesn’t move at all, it signifies static energy.  

He then hung the pendulum over the palm of a  participant for some time. The pendulum did  not budge. Kalyaan said that people’s auras  get muddied due to travelling and mixing  with others. He taught a set of energy-clearing  exercises and asked everyone to do it. After  that, when the pendulum was suspended over  the hands of people, it began to revolve in a  clockwise direction.  

Kalyaan said that most affirmations do not work  because we do not take into account elements  like direction, space, energy, frequency, and  numbers. If we did our visualisation and  affirmations by involving and invoking the  energies of these elements, our desires would  come to fruition much faster. 

Kalyaan said that every direction has a  specific energy, a planet, and a patron deity,  and responded to a certain set of numbers  or colours to become fully responsive to a  seeker. His claims could easily be tested with a  dowsing pendulum. According to him, the four  main directions, i.e., East, West, North, and  South are ruled by Sun, Saturn, Mercury, and  Mars respectively, and each of these directions  has a certain characteristic which gives a  certain outcome when approached correctly.  He however told everyone to be cautious  while dealing with the South direction, as its  governing planet is Mars, and Mars is about  spiritual matters and giving, not receiving.  Therefore, if this planet is afflicted in your life,  you need to give gratitude, do charity, and avoid  the colours red and black. Furthermore, he said  that these major directions also had specific  numbers which were their representation. For  example, number one represented the Sun and  the East direction, and its accompanying colour  was orange. Five represented Mercury and the  North direction, and its colour was green. Eight  

represented Saturn and the West direction,  and its colour was blue. Nine represented Mars  and the South direction, and its colour was red.  To prove his point, he made everyone undergo  the pendulum test. When we mismatched the  number, colour, affirmation, and planet, the  pendulum moved anticlockwise and when we  followed the sequence, the pendulum moved  clockwise. Keeping this in mind, Kalyaan  made us all say positive affirmations related to  health, wealth, relationships, prosperity, fame,  and longevity but in a way that was aligned to  their respective planets, directions, colours,  and numbers. He said that it was possible to  heal a direction and get the desired outcome if  we practise a certain affirmation 21 times for  40 days, facing the right direction and wearing  the resonant colour. 

Kalyaan emphasised that this was nothing  new, as ancient Indians used these elements  routinely to lead a fulfilling and harmonious  life. 

We tested the pendulum and the teachings of  Kalyaan Sir even after retiring to our rooms  and found them to be accurate each time. 

Breathing Abundance In by Partha Gupta Since Partha Gupta’s reputation precedes  him wherever he goes, the excitement for  his workshop was palpable, and many young  teachers from universities and a few business  executives also attended his workshop. Partha  entered the space in a subtle, casual manner,  resembling a sophisticated Himalayan yogi. 

Partha began with the aspect of yoga that is  most frequently misunderstood. He articulated  the relationship between yoga and separation  beautifully. He explained that the food we  consume is already in a yoga-like state. It has  matter and energy in alignment and inside one  another. Similar to how the body is made up  of matter and energy, where energy comprises  prana, i.e., life force and consciousness.  Wherever we put our attention, the mind  guides the energy there. Therefore, when one  is fully present and not paying attention to  fragments, it is yoga. Partha said, “Most of us  don’t experience this state because we have  convinced ourselves that it is rare and difficult  to achieve. In reality, it is not.” 

Partha discussed meditation in this context.  Fundamentally, meditation is ceasing to be  distracted and being fully present in the  current breath. To comprehend this, he gave  us a short activity which involved hearing the  sound of our in- Activate Your Inner Healer  through and out-breaths. The beauty of this  straightforward exercise is that it immediately  grounds one in the present, from where one  can observe everything going on around them.  He claimed that when you do this more often,  you will experience life on a higher plane and  move deeper. 

This was one of the few exercises he did with all  of us. Throughout the workshop, he was like a  magician who would pull a rabbit out of his hat  every now and then to let us experience other  ways of living and seeing things simply by using  one’s breath. He scattered seeds of breathwork  so that we could experience spirituality in our  daily lives, just like a farmer who sows seeds to  get a rich harvest in the months to come. 

The manner in which he led the workshop is  worth mentioning. We felt as though a close  friend was speaking to us, as he shared his own  experiences in an effort to improve our lives. 

The learning experiences were many. However, I decided to start with one exercise and do it  for a while. I was still working on my second  experiment, as I was writing this. I feel very  much like my calm, natural self. When I am  actively tuning into the sound of my breath,  I experience a flow. It sounds elusive, yet it is  simple. 

Day 2, August 21 

Activate Your Inner Healer with Holotropic  Breathwork by Fr K C Thomas 

Father K C Thomas was doing this famous  workshop for the first time with Life Positive,  and like everyone else, even we were curious  about it. He is a certified facilitator of  Holotropic Bodywork and has given over 100  workshops and retreats in various parts of  India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, and the  United States. Currently, he is doing research  at Gulbarga Central University in Holotropic  Breathwork, with central government funding. 

Though I knew that it had a lot to do with  breathing and music, how it was going to  unfold was something we wanted to know.  And Fr Thomas did not disappoint. When we  entered the hall, instead of chairs, there were  mattresses, pillows, and bedsheets lying on the  floor. Fr Thomas, with the help of participants,  arranged them into beds. Then he paired up  the participants. While one underwent the  process, the other was supposed to provide  support and assistance. 

We followed Father’s instructions, and one of  us lay down on the bed and another sat on a  watch. Father Thomas began to instruct the  lying participant to breathe deeply (from the  navel) and then to go on increasing the pace  of their breathing. This went on for about  10 minutes. Then came a time when the  breathing became minimal and extremely slow.  Immediately, music began to play. The music  was unlike anything we had heard in the past.  It was a mix of oriental, occidental, African,  and other forms of music. Father Thomas said  that the music was mixed in such a way as to  facilitate a cathartic release from a person’s  subconscious. No sooner had the music  begun than a few participants began to have  a catharsis. A lady let out a heart-wrenching  scream and began to convulse. A boy just got  up and began to complain of neck and back  pain. Another one went deeper within herself  and began to radiate a blissful smile. Whenever  a participant had a strong emotional outburst  or a reaction as a result of the surfacing of  hidden trauma, Father Thomas and his female  assistant provided physical support to them  by holding them while they released pent-up  emotions. 

After the first session was over, the roles  were reversed, and the caregiving participant  got the chance to lie down and undergo the  process. After the entire session was over, all  participants were asked to pick crayons and  make designs and patterns of their choice. In  the end, everyone sat in a circle and shared  their experiences while they were undergoing  catharsis. Some shared having seen a vision,  some an old, suppressed memory, and many  got guidance on which step to take next in life.  A few said that they enjoyed being in a deep  state so much that they didn’t realise how four  hours had passed. 

This was the first workshop in which  participants didn’t have to sit, listen, learn,  make notes, or practise anything later on. They  simply lay down and allowed things to happen.  The whole thing was a private affair, as the  doors were closed shut and nobody was allowed  to peep in. A different experience indeed! 

Create New Life with Past Life Regression  by Ambika Khanna 

This workshop kicked off with an overview of  how our current lives are inextricably linked  to our former lives. Ambika Khanna, the  renowned therapist and past life regression  facilitator, suggested that some previous  occurrences are behind our current habits.  She then discussed how regression can help us  comprehend how our past lives are influencing  our present lives. 

We learned how to fully unwind and let go  in the first part of the workshop so that we  could accept the imagery and information  popping up during the regression. This was  immediately followed by another significant  exercise designed to help us realise that we  all possess Extra Sensory Powers (ESP), even  though the majority of us don’t acknowledge or  even believe in this ability.  

As Ambika guided us through an exercise, we  were able to explore our subconscious mind and  

become more aware of the numerous anxieties  and restrictive patterns that controlled our life.  As a result, we learnt where our tendencies,  fears, and phobias came from. For many of  us, it was a trying and emotional event, but  it was also eye-opening. During the exercise,  few participants even sobbed, but after it was  over, we all reflected and noticed the pattern.  This insight was a sort of healing that opens  the door to a better way of life. 

According to Ambika, the subconscious mind  holds the answer to resolving relationship  problems. Many participants in the workshop  looked to their subconscious for answers to  their current relationship problems. A number  of them claimed that after the regression, they  were able to relate to and comprehend the root  causes of their current relationship problems,  as well as how to resolve them. 

Due to Ambika experience of leading at least  2500 workshops throughout her career and the  confident and reassuring manner in which she  conducts the programme, the workshop was a  deeply enriching experience.

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